


Radio Silence

by desperately_human



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: 2006, Gen, Sad, Short work, idk just some depressing thoughts, s2e08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 20:27:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14922285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desperately_human/pseuds/desperately_human
Summary: He knew his mother saw sometimes, the moments he didn’t have the energy to look alive.





	Radio Silence

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first fic I'm actually posting. Apologies in advance for any typing errors.

He smiled, in those first days, reminding himself every time it hurt that this, this was what he wanted. Reminding himself how to work the muscles in his face. It hurt most when he breathed. He squeezed rubber balls, moved on to short walks through the hallway, re-learned to button his own shirts. He knew his mother saw sometimes, the moments he didn’t have the energy to look alive. She didn’t ask; just like she had never asked him where he’d been the day his father disappeared. Mothers know things. He wondering too often id she remembered him, didn’t know how to ask, shook the stupid notion out of his head. Not real. He came back home; he went back to work. His mother stayed with him, and then she left, and he was alone at last, and he didn’t have to pretend anymore that just sitting upright was too draining. He turned on the radio, the CD player, the television. Let them all play whatever station they were on. Lay on his back on the floor when he knew he should be making dinner. He listened, and drifted off, and even in his dreams they didn’t speak to him. He would have welcomed their anger, hurt, recrimination. Anything to show that there was something beyond that moment in the tunnel. Anything to feel real. The doctors had given him, physically, the all-clear: back to normal, back to life. But too many mornings he felt too unbearably tired to do up the buttons on his shirt, to lift a spoon to his mouth and chew. He squeezed his hands into fists and focused on every word said in meetings, and on a good day he could remember every syllable in the endless conversations, and had no idea what any of them meant. One night he turned the radio dial until it was just static—no idea what station to pick— and spoke into it. “I’m sorry. I hope you’re okay. This is Sam. I’m sorry. This is Sam. I’m here. I’m sorry.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i love this fandom.


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